Update: gRPC is now generally available on Sui.

Accessing blockchain data should be fast, reliable, and developer-friendly. With the launch of full beta support for gRPC APIs on Sui Full Nodes, Sui advances its mission to deliver world-class data infrastructure. This beta release is useful for testing and preparing applications for future production readiness, with some changes expected based on user feedback.

Whether you're building an app, running exchange infrastructure, indexing blockchain state, or offering RPC-as-a-service, gRPC opens the door to a faster, more expressive, and future-ready way to work with the Sui blockchain.

Why gRPC matters for the future of Sui data

gRPC is a high-performance, schema-driven communication protocol designed for modern distributed systems. As we scale Sui and its data infrastructure, gRPC becomes the foundational building block for our long-term data serving vision.

Compared to legacy JSON-RPC, gRPC offers:

• Strong typing and client generation support across Rust, Go, TypeScript, Python, and more.
• Compact, efficient binary serialization via Protobuf.
• Support for real-time data streaming through a new subscription service.
• Consistent schemas and extensibility across endpoints and services.

With this release, gRPC moves from partial to full beta, offering broader service coverage, standardized conventions, and full support for real-time data streaming. While suitable for testing and staging, it remains a beta offering. Production use is possible but requires thorough validation of its functionality and readiness to adapt to potential changes.

Available services in gRPC beta

The new beta offering of gRPC introduces a set of Full Node services designed to support a wide range of developer and infrastructure needs, from transaction execution and state queries to real-time data streaming.

• MovePackageService: Introspect deployed Move packages.
• SignatureVerificationService: Pre-verify digital signatures.
• TransactionExecutionService: Submit signed transactions to the network.
• LedgerService: Query objects, transactions, checkpoints, epochs, and system state.
• LiveDataService: Fetch active state like balances, owned objects, and simulate transactions.
• SubscriptionService: Stream live transactions, events, and checkpoints as they occur onchain.

Together, these services make gRPC the most comprehensive and modern API surface for data available from Sui Full nodes.

Real-time streams for reactive apps

The beta launch introduces the powerful new SubscriptionService, enabling server-side streaming APIs for onchain activity. Developers can now subscribe to the executed checkpoints and fetch details for each checkpoint using the other batch API services.

These streams are gapless and ordered, allowing indexers, bots, wallets, and explorers to stay synced in real-time without polling. If a client disconnects, it can resume from the last known checkpoint and backfill using the other APIs.

This marks a new beginning for Sui's native support for push-based data workflows, an important step following the depreciation of WebSocket support for JSON-RPC. It’s a critical capability for next-gen Web3 applications.

Use cases across the ecosystem

Sui's gRPC API unlocks fast, structured access to onchain data, enabling a wide range of workflows. Here’s how different teams can take advantage of it:

• Developers: Build responsive apps with real-time data. Simulate and execute transactions, track live user or app activity, display NFT or token balances, and more — powered by efficient queries and subscriptions.
• Exchanges: Maintain fast, reliable infrastructure. Rapidly execute and verify transactions, access recent and historical data, and monitor checkpoint progress with consistent state guarantees.
• Indexers and data providers: Power high-performance APIs and dashboards by combining live subscriptions with batch queries to stay synced and complete.
• RPC providers and node operators: Serve modern developer needs with fast serialization, real-time streaming, and typed, maintainable interfaces built for scale.

Building towards a better data layer

gRPC is more than an API upgrade, it's part of a broader initiative to reimagine how blockchain data is served and consumed on Sui. As outlined in the data serving guide, Sui vision includes:

• A clear separation between raw data (gRPC) and rich, derived data (GraphQL)
• Support for real-time streaming alongside batch APIs
• Modular, performant, and scalable archival backends
• A next-generation indexer framework along with a standardized indexer designed to leverage gRPC

This marks the beginning of a gradual phase-out of Sui JSON-RPC. Going forward, gRPC will become the canonical Full Node API, offering lower latency, richer semantics, and a more scalable, secure path for integration.

Getting started with gRPC

You can start building with gRPC today! The Sui Full Node gRPC Overview includes developer guides and usage examples, and the latest proto files are on GitHub. For broader context, explore the data access roadmap to see how gRPC fits into Sui’s long term-vision.

This release marks an important step towards a faster, more scalable data layer for Web3 applications. Whether you're building apps, infrastructure, or analytics tools, gRPC gives you the speed, structure, and flexibility to move with confidence.